Chapter Text
How would you feel if you could not only create life, but take it away? Would you pursue a life of helping others or go and use the ability to take lives in a more evil manner? Would you ignore the ability to take lives?
In Todoroki Shouto’s case, he lives by the final question, his father was around 80% Hades and he lived by the legend a bit too seriously. His father forced a persephone woman to marry him. He wanted to create the most powerful reincarnation ever. It took 4 tries to create Shouto. First, they got Zagreus’ reincarnation, a boy name Touya who was strong, but ignored by their father. Then Makarias’, Fuyumi was the only daughter they had, she was merciful like their mother, but still created and ruled death. Followed by Natsuo who was Melinoes’. Everyone pales in comparison to Shouto, who was the unbelievable mix of all of thim.
Shouto could mix Hades and Persephone’s powers into any combination of his siblings, since all their powers stemmed from the two gods. Shouto could rule over death and create nightmares terrifying enough to cause any man to curl in a ball and hide. But, he was also sweet, he could make plants grow and bring back little bugs lives. He was still beyond powerful though, and it scared many people.
Everything about him was like a negative version, perfectly different, red/white hair, blue/grey eyes, all on the same perfect porcelain skin. Then his mother, in a moment of fear and pain, scarred him for life. His mother was taken away, leaving the bi-colored boy to his father's mercy.
Most people train their strengths, like apollo kids trying to predict things or writing love songs or Hephaestus kids making things, but this was some insane new level.
Endeavor was a cruel man, he would take recently put down animals and command Shouto to bring them back. The boy always found this part easy, it caused him no sorrow to bring a poor creature back into the world. What his father made him do next always caused him pain, he was forced to remove the soul from the animal and command it to fight with one's his father made.
It always frustrated Enji when when Shouto would bless the creature’s soul, like his sister taught him in secret. It made the animal less powerful and less insane. The adult always told Shouto that blessing them made his spirits weaklings and in turn made him weaker.
The worst one was when they brought in a cat, a little orange tabby with big eyes and a soft purr. Endeavor said it had been raised to be used in this manner, meant to be killed and have it’s soul toyed with. Shouto cried, screaming that he didn’t want to hurt the kitty, his father smacked him and shouted about how he would have to get used to it if he wanted to be stronger than All Might.
“I swear on the river Styx, Shouto, if you bless that animal when you take it’s soul out, I will destroy it in the most brutal way possible.” said the man in a cold and threatening manner. His fist in Shouto’s training shirt.
Tears streamed down the boys cheeks, dripping onto his shirt. When his father released him, he went up to the cat, whispered, “I am so sorry.” The cat looked at him, it’s black eyes looking to Shouto’s own heterochromatic eyes. Shouto had to look away. He reached out a thin shaking arm and imagined that the cat was a container and he held a magnet, then with a sickening crack the soul came out of the cat and went to Shouto. The tears stopped like the cats life, for what could his tears do for a dead animal?
The cat was not the same, it was angry. Shouto could feel betrayal and hurt radiating off it’s soul. He wished that he could apologize, go back and put the soul into the body, but this method was irreversible. If a god of death removes your soul, only an outside force can return it, like Hercules did for Megara. But, there would be none of that for this animal.
Shouto finished the rest of the lesson swiftly and promptly ran to his room as soon as he could. He expected to cry like he usually does when he has to take lives, but this time, he felt nothing. He just looked at the wall and felt no sorrow. It was like a switch had been flipped in his brain, all emotions had been stopped.
He went another 9 years like this. He trained exactly as his father told him. He learned to call on spirits to help him fight in combat. He took countless other animals lives, secretly blessing some of them when the fights end, but mainly doing nothing other than what he was instructed to do.
Not once did he shed a tear, he never felt remorse. His sister was concerned, tried to ask him what happened to the little boy she knew. Natsuo tried to help, but it was no use.
At one point during all of this, Touya rebelled. He said that Enji destroyed the Todoroki family, the man called him crazy. They fought, and eventually Touya left, saying one day he would try to save his siblings.
This was Natsuo’s snapping point. Shouto’s brother just stopped caring what Enji did, he no longer spoke to the man they all called father. It broke Fuyumi, she desperately wanted her family to be nice and not at war, but that was pointless wishing.
Eventually, it was time for Shouto to try to get into UA through Endeavors recommendation. The fight was difficult, but nothing worse than he was used to. He didn’t even feel it when someone hit him. It was all just beige and monotone, nothing new.
It was no surprise when he got into UA. Shouto had trained for it and beat all but one of the kids in the battles.
What was a surprise was the other students.
The one that caught his attention but shouldn’t have was Midoriya Izuku. He was a small teen with bushy green hair and lots of freckles. Looking at him, he seemed perfectly ordinary, but when he spoke it was madness. He knew everything about everyone and their gods and seemed to mutter about it even when no one else was around.
He also was ridiculously powerful, like to the point it hurt him to use his gifts. And Shouto, with his extensive knowledge of gods and their skills, could not place what the boys god was. Then Shouto got to hoping, ‘What if Midoriya is also a combination? He seems to hold different characters attributes. ’
Shouto then took to studying Midoriya. He found that he had brute strength like Zeus, was wise like Athena, talks non-stop like some hermes kids, and was a little mad like Dionysus. None of it made sense. Oh, and Shouto started noticing that his smile was Apollo blessed, it was looking at the damn sun when he smiled.
On one fine day, a week into the dorm situation, he was hiding in the shadows of the common room, he also had the unique ability to disappear into the shadows when he wears hats, if he wishes. Experts have told him that it’s because Hades can do that with his special object. His silent observing was stopped by Midoriya walking up to the shadows and saying “Hello Todoroki. You know that even when you are invisible in the shadows, we can tell where you are?”
In defeat, Shouto took off his hat and looked at the green haired boy in disbelief. “It’s because of you give off an air of fear. I’m not saying that you are afraid of you or anything, it’s more like everyone knows something’s off. It’s like when you watch a horror movie and the characters can sense that something’s there, they just can’t see it.”
“So now I am a horror film character?” The bi-colored boy said dully. It was weird to hear what your sister describes as your crush say that you’re a horror character.
Midoriya’s eyes went wide and he started shaking his head and rambling, “No, Todoroki! You know that none of us think of you like that, it’s just that sometimes you give off a creepy air, like all emotions other than fear die off around you? I don’t know….”
“I get it, Midoriya. No need to explain any more. I think I’m going to go to my room.” Shouto then walked out of the room, ignoring the calls of the boy he would one day like to say is his friend.
As he headed up to the fifth floor, he sat and simmered in his emotions. Now, some people would feel betrayal or hurt when they hear that there presence makes everyone uneasy, but Shouto is not one of those people. All Shouto felt could be summed up in a quiet huh .
Inside his room he kept several plants, they were one of the few things that made him feel anything. He had an iris plant, a lily and an ivy plant, they can bloom whenever he wishes, but he had always preferred to watch them naturally go through the cycle.
Shouto decided to finish his homework on the floor because, why not? When he finished, he laid and stared at the ceiling.
After Zeus knew how long, there was a soft knock on the door. “Todoroki? Are you there?” Midoriya called through the door. Shouto didn’t answer, instead he laid there, trying to figure out what to have for dinner.
The green haired boy must have left because no one else tried to knock on his door for the rest of the day.